First, farmers saw the immediate economic catastrophe in Alabama because of the state’s draconian immigration law HB 56 as immigrant workers fled and their crops rotted. Then two high-profile arrests of foreign autoworkers legally in the state potentially put international investment in Alabama at risk. As a result, business leaders are now joining the chorus of voices against HB 56 because of serious economic consequences the anti-immigrant law is having on the state — while the state’s governor is playing damage control with the four foreign automakers that employ tens of thousands of Alabamians.

Hint to foreign auto company executives: Anti-union “Right to work” states are that way because unions fight for the rights of all workers, including non-white ones and those born outside of the US. There’s a reason that the “right to work” concept is most strongly upheld in the former (?) slave states, and that reason has a lot to do with the corporate-bigot alliance called “The Southern Strategy”.

“The tea party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race,”said Christopher Parker, a UW assistant professor of political science who directed the survey.

It found that those who are racially resentful, who believe the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks, are 36 percent more likely to support the tea party than those who are not.

Indeed, strong support for the tea party movement results in a 45 percent decline in support for health care reform compared with those who oppose the tea party. “While it’s clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it’s also clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,”Parker said.